Joseph No.18 Accepted in the Beloved

To the book of Genesis and chapter 46, I'm sure many of us have come to recognise the importance of consecutive Bible study, but I'm very grateful that I've been spared the list of names in Genesis 46 from verse 8. We pick up the reading at verse 26, Genesis 46, 26. Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When they arrived in the region of Goshen, Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel.

As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time. Israel said to Joseph, now I'm ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive. And Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, I will go up and speak to Pharaoh and will say to him, my brothers and my father's household who are living in the land of Canaan have come to me.

The men are shepherds, they tend livestock and they have brought along their flocks and herds and everything they own. When Pharaoh calls you in and asks, what is your occupation? You should answer, your servants have tended livestock from our boyhood on, just as our fathers did. Then you will be allowed to settle in the region of Goshen, for all shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians.

Joseph went and told Pharaoh, my father and brothers with their flocks and herds and everything they own have come from the land of Canaan and are now in Goshen. He chose five of his brothers and presented them before Pharaoh. Pharaoh asked the brothers, what is your occupation? Your servants are shepherds, they replied to Pharaoh, just as our fathers were.

They also said to him, we have come to live here a while because the famine is severe in Canaan and your servants' flocks have no pasture. So now please let your servants settle in Goshen. Pharaoh said to Joseph, your father and your brothers have come to you and the land of Egypt is before you.

Settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land, let them live in Goshen. And if you know of any among them with special ability, put them in charge of my own livestock. And Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh.

After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, how old are you? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence.

So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Ramesses, as Pharaoh directed. Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father's household with food according to the number of their children. God will bless that public reading of his holy word.

I've often confessed to you that though I'm committed to preaching from the new international version of the Bible, simply because I think it's easier for people who are coming to the Bible for the first time to grasp its message, and because now its sales are phenomenal worldwide, my own personal preference, possibly because I was brought up with it as a lad, is for the authorized version of the Bible. And very often when I'm reading through scripture, I'll check the NIV with the AV, or little phrases from my own memory's recall of the AV will flood into the forefront of my mind. And that was my experience this past week.

When looking at the passage that I'm directing your attention to, which has already been read to you, when reflecting on that, I thought of that lovely phrase in Ephesians, the opening verses, where in the authorized version, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the benefits that accrue to folk like you and me who've trusted him, you find the phrase, accepted in the beloved. We are accepted in the beloved. The apostle makes it very plain as he goes on to define all the consequences of us putting trust in our Lord Jesus, that basically the reason for our blessings is simply because the Lord Jesus has accepted us and presented us to the Father, and we have been brought into the family circle of the Lord.

We're told in verse 4 of Ephesians 1, and I'm reading the NIV, For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his good pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given us in the one he loves, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And if you just bring that down to one phrase, it's that summary statement made so plain in the authorised version.

You and I are what we are as children of God because we are accepted in the beloved. When God looks upon us and blesses us, he does so basically because he sees us as part of the body of our Lord Jesus, the people for whom the Lord Jesus Christ died. Written across this congregation, if you please, if there's one word that describes blood-bought children of God, it's the word accepted.

And in one sense, if I can define that word, put biblical content to it and illustrate it by this passage from Genesis, then I will have achieved my objective this morning. I want you to go from this place realising this, in a way that you've perhaps never fully comprehended it before, that you are accepted by God through Jesus Christ. Everything that you are, everything that you ever hope to be, the whole of the eternity that lies beyond is yours because of him, because you have been accepted in him.

There's no greater name than Jesus Christ. There's no greater friend that you will ever have. He is your intercessor.

He is the one who understands you. He knows all about you and he loves you. He bled and died on Calvary's cross for your sin.

He was raised again to plead your case before the Father. You'll never have a friend greater than him. You're accepted by God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And we dare to say amidst all the so-called sophistication and the intellectualism of the 20th century that we people here in Worthing Tabernacle build our hope for the future on Jesus Christ and his accomplishments for us. We're accepted by God through him.

Now it seems to me that you get a very wonderful historical illustration of this great truth of Scripture as you come to this narrative passage that we're now to make our way through. You see, here is old Jacob, Jacob Israel, who has had the phenomenal news brought to him by his sons that his favourite lad, who he years ago considered to be dead, is actually alive. He's done very well in Egypt.

Now the travesty of a famine has threatened the well-being of Jacob and his sons and indeed all the people who live in the various parts of the world. And the only respite, the only possibility of amelioration, of help is through the foresight of the Prime Minister of Egypt who during bumper years of harvest has had the wisdom to conserve food to such an excess amount that he is able to allow food to be distributed to the Egyptians and also to all who come from different countries to buy grain. And Jacob, he has this astonishing information granted to him that that wise man on whom the physical salvation of the world at this time depends is none other than his boy Joseph.

The news takes some long time in grasping for twenty years or so he's been under this misapprehension that Joseph is dead. But he has evidence to support the testimony of those sons who have dealt so mischievously with him. And he sets off now towards the land of Egypt.

You see him, an old man, and you wonder just what thoughts are crossing his mind as he leaves the land of promise and the land of memory and he comes to Egypt which has often brought such displeasure and sadness to the experience of his forebears. And you find that when Jacob actually comes to Egypt itself he sends Judah on ahead to get directions to the land in which they think they may be able to settle. And from verse 29 you read that Joseph having heard of the arrival of his father doesn't stay in his palace but sets out in his chariot to meet him.

And as he meets him, as he sees him, he throws his arms around him and he weeps. Now stay for a moment will you and think this through. At the human level, on whom did the future of Jacob and his sons depend? The answer is clear.

It depends upon the graciousness of the Prime Minister of Egypt. There is no one else who can give these men what they require. And so they have to set off from the land of promise and they have, so to speak, to put every egg just in one basket.

They have to believe that Joseph will deal graciously and lovingly with them. All their hope is pivoted on this one thing. Will they be accepted by Joseph? As our hope for eternity pivots on the statement that I made earlier that Jesus Christ is the saviour of the world, the friend of sinners.

And so they all leave. All Joseph's brothers, all Jacob's sons, all the descendants, 70 of them. Not one close relative is left behind and they move towards Egypt and the basis of their confidence is in Joseph and the way that they believe he will receive them.

They will be accepted by him as his family. And because of who he is, the authority that he has and the way in which he has been able to preserve security for Egyptians and for others by having this grain kept during these bumper years of harvest so he will be able to minister to their needs. How do you know that Joseph has received Jacob favourably? Well, my answer is this.

When you see a man fall upon another, a masculine individual not someone who is emotionally weak, but a man's man when you discover this particular individual falling on the neck of an older man kissing him and weeping over him then you have indication that this man's heart has been directed towards the one who is the object of his affections. So you see when Joseph spies Jacob, verse 29, Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time. There is a sense in which Joseph shows us something of the nature of our Lord Jesus.

Our Saviour was a man's man. There was nothing effeminate about him. There was nothing emotionally weak about him.

But there were times when his emotions were so disturbed that he did show the sensitivity of his heart by breaking into tears. He empathised with the condition of humanity. His heart went out to a woman who has been bereaved of her only son.

His heart goes out to two sisters who have lost their brother. He stands on some pinnacle overlooking Jerusalem. He envisages what just lies round the corner, proverbially speaking, for the citizens of that holy place and he bursts into tears.

There is something about the shedding of tears from a man's man which is indicative of his emotion and his commitment. Joseph is committed to his old father Israel who he has not seen for some two decades. The whole incident has written across it, accepted.

Jacob accepts Joseph. Joseph, more importantly, accepts Jacob. And here, I tell you, is the heart of the Gospel message illustrated.

Jesus accepts you. The Lord Jesus accepts me. I find that to be the most difficult fact to accept myself.

That the Lord Jesus Christ should put his favour upon me. That the Lord Jesus should have, by his predestinating work, have made it possible for me to be a benefactor, to share the blessings of his work at the cross and his mighty resurrection. I don't find it too great a puzzle to understand his love to you, but I find it difficult to accept his love for me.

But I do accept it and I praise God for it. And written across my heart is that one word, accepted, which is, as I say, the summary statement of the Gospel. Now, how? How do we know that Joseph has accepted his brothers? How do you know that Jesus has accepted you? You see, there's much about those brothers which, for me, would be, at the human level, an acute embarrassment had I been Joseph.

Joseph is a sophisticated man. He's been plunged, not by choice, but by God's design, he's been plunged into the land of Egypt with all its culture, with all its education. He dresses differently.

He speaks a different language. And here, forgive the expression, are a dozen lads who really are the equivalent of country yokels. I could imagine Joseph being ashamed.

Here is decrepit Jacob as he moves slowly down the miles, coming towards Egypt. Joseph despises him. Could there not have been, had Joseph had a hardened heart, that which would cause him to go cold as far as Jacob was concerned? But no, you read that Joseph embraces Jacob as he'd embraced his brothers earlier.

And when you move through into the New Testament, into the delightful epistle to the Hebrews, you find it said of our Lord Jesus in the opening chapters that he is not ashamed to call men his disciples. He's not ashamed to call you and me his brothers. There is on more than just a human level, there is on a divine level, for the angels find this difficult to comprehend, that which strikes us as being strange, that Jesus Christ should so identify with us that he's not ashamed of us.

He's not ashamed to call us his brothers, his sisters. He accepts us. Isn't that marvellous? In the same way as old Jacob has been accepted by Joseph with so many kisses and embraces, in the same fashion, I tell you, the Lord Jesus accepts you and me.

Joseph was not ashamed of his brothers, of his father. Moreover, as I indicated, he shows his feelings by the way in which he weeps over them. The Hebrews goes on to tell you in the fourth chapter and the fifteenth verse, I quote from the authorised version, we have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

Do you know what that means? It's speaking of Jesus. And it's saying that the emotions of our Lord Jesus are such that he is touched with us and our state, our condition. You see, I can now begin to imagine the incredible surge of warmth that there is in the heart of Joseph as he thinks that, well, God has allowed all these things, some of the most sour to have happened in his life so that one day he might be able to minister to his old dad in a way that no one else could do.

His heart went out to his father, as his heart went out to his brothers when first he saw them, as his heart went out to Benjamin as he wept having excused himself from the company of the Egyptians and his brothers. Joseph, his immediate response to his brothers was acceptance. The immediate response of Jesus to you and me is the same.

He's not ashamed to call us his brothers. He weeps over us. He weeps for us.

So Joseph welcomes his father and his brothers again, verse 31, and he says to them, I will go up and speak to Pharaoh. Now just before we deal with that comment, let me go out at a tangent for a moment or two. I was especially addressing, though not exclusively, my remarks last week to those who are getting on in years.

Here is Joseph having shown his love towards Jacob, and before he makes reference about going to Pharaoh, you find in verse 30 Israel's response to Joseph. Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive. Jacob's often spoken about death during the verses that allude to him in the previous two chapters.

It's always been pessimistic. If I am bereaved, I am bereaved. I'll go to my grave mourning.

But now the language is somewhat different, is it not? I'm ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you, Joseph, are still alive. Do you remember, those of you who are well versed in Scripture, and thank God many of you here are, do you remember that lovely incident around the Nativity chapters describing the birth and the immediate circumstances of our Lord Jesus? In the temple at Jerusalem, there's an old man, and he too is wanting to die, but not wanting to die until he's seen the Messiah born into the world. And the day comes when he takes Mary's little babe, and he cradles it in his arms, and he says in the words of the prayer that our Anglican friends would call the nunc dimittis, Now let us, thou thy servant, depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.

What a way to go. Jesus in your arms. Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you're still alive.

I'm ready to go when I know I've been accepted by Jesus. I'm ready to go when I know that he is King of kings and Lord of lords, and my eternal destiny is within his grasp. How wonderful to be accepted and to work through the consequences of that conversion experience.

Well, that was just a digression. Let's come back. Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, I will go up and speak to Pharaoh.

How do you know that they're accepted? Because Joseph is prepared to go into the presence of the most important man in the world in those days and speak on behalf of father and brothers to Pharaoh. There is one who is in the heavens, says the writer of the Hebrew epistle, whoever lives to make reference, to make intercession for you and for me, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has gone, using the metaphorical language of the Old and the New Testament, into the holiest place of all, into the throne room of God, and there he speaks to the father about us. You see, if Joseph had been ashamed, he'd never have gone to Pharaoh, would he, and identified these people as being his own flesh and blood.

Now, when our Lord Jesus came on earth, do you know how I understand His ministry? I think He came to found a family. He came to His own, the natural family, the Jews. But by and large, they rejected Him.

But to as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God. That's the biblical doctrine of adoption. But that's a synonym with acceptance.

He came to accept those who accepted Him. And having accepted Him, He then takes them and their names and their condition into the throne room where He intercedes before God on their behalf. I'll go to Pharaoh, and I'll talk to Pharaoh about you.

That's precisely what He did. He not only talked to Pharaoh about them, but He took five of them into Pharaoh's presence. Not so, chapter 47.

Joseph went and told Pharaoh, My father and brothers with their flocks and herds and everything they own have come from the land of Canaan, and now are in Goshen. He chose five of his brothers and presented them before Pharaoh. One of the greatest thrills that our Lord Jesus Christ has, have you ever thought of this? To look down from His high heaven and point His finger towards you and me and speak to the Father and say, those people, I've accepted them.

They're part of me. They're part of the family circle. And He brings you into the presence of God.

And you pray to the Lord. And you can ask the Lord God for things. You've no more need to be embarrassed in the presence of God than Jacob's sons needed to be embarrassed in the presence of Pharaoh.

For them, the reason for a lack of embarrassment, Joseph was there. For you, for me, Jesus is there. And we approach the Father in His name.

Pharaoh receives these five brothers representative of the family. And Joseph has previously instructed them what to say. Pharaoh puts up the question, verse 3, what is your occupation? And these brothers of Joseph, they tell Pharaoh where they're at, where they've come from.

Your servants are shepherds. Now, that was a risky thing to tell Pharaoh. You see, the shepherd did not really have great social standing in Egyptian culture.

If you go to Egypt and see some of the drawings of the ancient world, you'll discover that those who looked after swine and sheep were always caricatured as being amongst the feeble, the crippled, those who were inadequate in society. Egyptian culture was given over basically to townspeople. And there is a sense in which townspeople don't understand country people.

And there were times in history when townspeople looked down upon country people. And here are these brothers of Joseph, and they come before Pharaoh, and he says, what's your occupation? They know full well that to be a shepherd was an abomination in Egypt. And yet they tell the truth.

They're men of the fields, men of animals, herdsmen, shepherds. And when you stand in the presence of God, and he asks you what you are, to settle for less than the truth is absurd. You're a sinner.

Your father was a sinner. Your grandfather was a sinner. As these sons' father was a shepherd, and their grandfather had been a shepherd.

Basic to Jewish culture in those days was the nomadic sort of life. Written into your genes is the tendency to sin. And to stand before Pharaoh and plead anything else but that is to deceive yourself.

Or rather, to stand before God. But he will accept you, even though sin is an abomination in his sight because of Jesus, as Pharaoh accepts these men because of Joseph. And what's more, they tell him what their need is.

We have come here to live a while because the famine is severe in Canaan. And your servants' flocks have no pasture. In other words, unless you deal graciously with us, Pharaoh, we're in trouble.

We have got no other solution for the problems which confront us. As we have no solution for the problems that confront ourselves today and outside of the merciful disposition of God, then of all creatures we're the most embarrassed. Not so? They don't try to pass Pharaoh a dummy.

They say who they are and what their problem is. And unless you help, we've got no solution to our difficulties at all. And then? And then they go one mite further.

Please let your servants settle in Goshen. They knew what they needed, and they pray specifically beseeching Pharaoh that he will grant them that tract of land which has already been intimated to them by Joseph as being the best place for them to settle. Our Lord Jesus tells you and me that the day will come.

He was speaking historically. It has now arrived. He was directing His remarks to His immediate disciples.

When you will be able to go into the presence of the Father and ask anything in His name, and He will grant it. And here you've got a perfect example, you see, of men who did that. Setting an illustration for you and for me.

What you need in terms of your eternal well-being. What you need in terms of spiritual food. Ask the Father.

Ask Him. And He will grant it to you. For when the Father hears people pray in my name, His heart softens towards them and He shows mercy because they've been accepted by me, they're accepted by Him.

Isn't that marvelous? Accepted by Jesus means accepted by the Father. And Pharaoh, because of Joseph's influence, responds in an affirmative fashion, doesn't he? Verse 5, Pharaoh said to Joseph, Your father and your brothers have come to you and the land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land.

Let them live in Goshen. You see what is happening here? Pharaoh is publicly recognizing Joseph in front of the brothers. All the land of Egypt is yours.

I gave it you, Joseph. I said that there would only be one person who would be preeminent above you and that would be in the things concerning the throne and it is me. But apart from me, you control everything, Joseph.

You settle these affairs. You respond to their requests. Our God has given to our Lord Jesus all authority in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

He is King of kings and Lord of lords. So He says, When you approach the Father through the Son, you settle it, my son, because to you I have given the authority so to do. Now, isn't it marvelous? These brothers who had so questioned Joseph in earlier years find a pagan king acknowledging the authority that actually is Joseph's.

And they're accepted by this king because Joseph in the first place has accepted them as you and I are accepted by the Father because he's accepted us in the Son. And so these brothers and their father are directed to Goshen, a specially selected tract of land in between Joseph's palace and the actual territory that leads into Palestine. Joseph was so wise, was he not, in advising the brothers to be honest in the presence of Pharaoh.

They're not likely to be absorbed, you see, into the lifestyle of the Egyptians. They're shepherds, as I said. There's no cultural intercourse between shepherds and ordinary people in Egypt in those days.

But that's precisely the thing that Jesus wants to preserve, that Joseph wanted to preserve. I said to you before, arguing at an early point in the Scripture, that though Joseph went into Egypt, Egypt never got into Joseph. He always remained the son of Jacob, the proud possessor of the promises of Abraham and Isaac.

He was always a Jew. He was never an Egyptian. He was always strong.

He was never weak. That's why he stands out almost par excellence in the whole of the Old Testament as an illustration for a committed disciple. But he was frightened for his brothers.

Put them in the Egyptian cities of Alexandria, and they'll soon be compromising. Keep them away as shepherds, doing what they used to do. And then when the years pass, it won't be so difficult for them to leave the land of Egypt and return back to the land of promise.

How wise was Joseph. And how wise is Jesus, Joseph, as He deals with you and as He intercedes on your behalf before the Father. My time is gone.

The word that I said was a summary statement that helps us to understand the whole of this incident is the word accepted. And it illustrates that great New Testament doctrine that you and I have been accepted in the Beloved, not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus is. The authority and the privileges that have been passed on to the Lord Jesus by the Father have in turn been diverted to us through the grace of Jesus Christ.

Thank God, brothers and sisters, we have a friend, oh, such a friend, who loved us, ere we knew Him. Thank God for the acceptance that is ours through Him forever and ever. Amen.

Let's sing 419, a hymn that has a Wesleyan connotation and enables those who loved of the Lord Jesus and of the Father and of the Spirit to respond by asserting the love that they have in their hearts for the Godhead. And thee will I love, my strength, my tower. 419.